What’s Beef? N.W.A vs. Ice Cube

You can’t say N.W.A wasn’t properly named. These niggas really did have attitude, but it made for good music. They all used to be friends. So what’s beef?

Eazy had a label, Ruthless Records with Jerry Hiller, on which the group N.W.A was signed. The group reached stardom and questions regarding the finances had arisen. Ice Cube felt he wasn’t being paid properly, and left the group. Then, in N.W.A’s first album without Cube ‘100 Miles and Runnin,’ as well as the name of their title track; they took shots at Ice Cube.

“We started with five, but yo / One couldn’t take it—So now it’s four / Cuz the fifth couldn’t make it…”

They also attacked him in their album ‘Niggaz4Life,’ where MC Ren, Dr. Dre, and Eazy E attacked Cube and called him whack, stupid and gay. Most directly in the skit ‘Message to B.A’ released on the album. They refer to Cube as Benedict Arnold and go on an all-out attack against his character. It was rather quite amusing. They also released the song ‘Real Niggaz’ Dre hit Ice Cube with,

“…’Cause the vocals were local in nightclubs and not getting paid in full. Then got the nerve to cuss. Only reason niggaz pick up your record is ‘cause they thought it was us,” proceeded to say,
“…We started out wit too much cargo. So I’m glad we got rid of Benedict Arnold…”

N.W.A talked the talk. However, for me, they didn’t walk the walk.

Ice Cube came with a counter attack. He dropped ‘No Vaseline’ in ’91 and demolished his whole ex-crew with one song. Cube did not leave one man out as he went on his tyrant. Cube told Dr. Dre to stick to producing and claimed that they were, “…getting fucked out their green by a white boy, with no Vaseline…” Yikes! He also hit them with their own line and reversed it on them stating,

“…I started off with too much cargo…Dropped four niggas now I’m making all the dough…”

If that’s not bad enough, Cube went on to compare MC Ren to Kunta Kentaye and accused him of being gay and having a sexual relationship with group mate Eazy E. Cube said,

And just continues to call them all gay, especially Eazy E, throughout the course of the track. I personally feel Cube hit Eazy the worst. Calling him gay, a dumb nigga, and an uncle tom. I mean, the insults against those he once called friends was endless.

Complete body, there were three bags. Shortly after Cube released this gem, N.W.A dismantled and the members went on to their solo projects. Dre and Eazy E began to beef, and no one dared to comeback at Cube. Ice Cube definitely will go down as one of the G.O.A.T to make a diss record.